Neha Juneja: The woman who became a support to the rural India

Indoor pollution, caused by smoke from ancient chulhas, is that the biggest health risk round-faced by rural households in the Asian nation. per annum it kills over four.3 million folks globally, that is beyond protozoal infection, HIV and infectious disease combined. Their flagship product is belt good Stove, engineered victimization their proprietary air-regulated technology, that emits seventy percent less smoke and uses sixty-five percent less biomass as fuel, claims Juneja. Therefore, it’s a transparent impact on deforestation. per her, employing a clean stove additionally reduces greenhouse emissions by 2-2.5 tonnes per annum. there’s a requirement for such merchandise, says Juneja, however the sales strategy should differ for each state.

In the north wherever men hold the purse strings, there’s a desire to sensitize them concerning clean preparation fuel. within the northeast, it’s easier to sell as housekeeping is shared by men and girls, says Juneja. There area unit one hundred thirty feet on the road World Health Organization tell folks all concerning the merchandise and conduct workshops so they savvy the stove differs from the standard mud or brick stove.

Since its launch in 2011, the belt has sold the merchandise to 6 large integer rural households. Currently, there area unit 2 stove classes, priced at Rs one,800 and Rs three,000. because the target customers area unit the agricultural poor, the belt has busy with microfinance firms to facilitate loans. It had additionally piloted direct bank line last year to reinforce sales. To expand their inexperienced business any, the co-founders created their industrial plant in Vadodara in 2014 and say it’s the most important stove producing a unit in the Asian nation. they’re additionally about to launch it in the Asian country and Asian nation this year.

Greenway’s numbers area unit spectacular, and justify their optimism as sound. Now, it’s a matter of continuing to aim high, whereas maintaining connections with the fact of customers, and to not lose the understanding of their real daily issues.

Greenway was shaped with the vision and ambition to serve rural customers with high performance, reasonable product based mostly solutions. we have a tendency to deploy technologies into merchandise through the method of user-driven co-creation. Our 1st product, the belt good Stove, forms a contemporary replacement for ancient mud stoves, saving sixty-fifth fuel and emitting seventieth less smoke, therefore facultative healthier, happier kitchens. belt additionally works to create market-based mostly distribution networks that area unit value economical and supply for prime service effectuality.

Neha Juneja is that the co-founder of belt Appliances, a start-up coming up with and promoting economical preparation solutions to rural households. Previously, Neha organized community-led comes and need-analysis consulting in a very big selection of areas together with agro biological science, primary energy offer, and water access across rural Asian nation. She has been internationally recognized for her excellence in product style. additionally to the various awards she has helped GGI secure, Neha was named 2010’s Brightest Young Climate Leader by the geographic area Times & British Council and won the L’Oreal Paris Femina girls Award for Science and Innovation in 2013. She attained her Master in Business Administration from FMS, Delhi and a BE in Production.

Neha has attained her B.E. in Production from the Delhi faculty of Engineering and Master in Business Administration from the College of Management Studies, Delhi. once graduating in 2009, she co-founded belt Eco-development, a carbon credits consulting company, centered on corporal punishment community-led comes in resource management, global climate change mitigation, agro-forestry, primary energy offer, and water access. She was additionally adjudged because the Brightest Young Climate Leader 2010 by the geographic area Times & British Council.

Leading the corporate is Neha Juneja, 30, co-founder and Chief officer, belt Grameen below, that manufactures biomass cookstoves. She says their stoves emit seventy percent less smoke and use sixty-five percent less fuel than ancient mud cookstoves.

According to her, studies showed that just about 3 billion folks globally cook with solid biomass fuels. In India, nearly 850 million folks, or a hundred sixty-five million households, rely upon this ancient fuel. Burning biomass fuel (wood, junk, and agro-waste) in open fires or ancient mud ‘chulhas’ (stoves) is inefficient and lets off a great deal of smoke and soot.

Due to this indoor preparation, per associate OXFAM study, seventy percent of girls exposed to the present pollution and passive smoking, eventually suffer from carcinoma.

Her co-founder Ankit Mathur had studied at the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad. They approached IIM-A’s technology business apparatus, Centre for Innovation, Incubation associated Entrepreneurship (CIIE) for facilitating and got seed funding of ₹20 large integer every from CIIE and an angel capitalist. afterward, the Clinton world Initiative, below its world Alliance for Clean Cook Stoves, infused ₹1 large integer. They rented associate industrial shed to line up the industrial plant.

Greenway Grameen below has sixty-two workers, together with seven in the metropolis, and by the year-end, plans to proportion to one hundred. The venture sells nearly a pair of.6 large integer stoves annually and may frame to eight large integer stoves.

Greenway Grameen’s two-pronged strategy is sound into the retail network and partnering with micro-finance establishments (MFIs).

With that thought, the pair traveled for 9 months to know what folks actually need and build a stove that wouldn’t compromise on anyone’s cookery habits. Their ten completely different prototypes were tested in 5 pre-identified States, whereby they approached native girls for feedback, all of that was fastidiously analyzed and incorporated into the ultimate product – belt good Stove.

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